RAIN Group Sales Blog

Many people want to believe that cold calling doesn't work because they don't want to have to get on the phone. Indeed, there are many ways to do it wrong and fail. Many cold callers use deceptive tactics to get through and leave a bad taste in buyers' mouths.

Read More

Do you know what it’s going to take to reach your sales target? It’s not enough to have a quota or even set goals for yourself—you need to know exactly what to do daily to accomplish your goals.

Read More

The practice of sales prospecting is surrounded by confusion and misconceptions. Prospecting may sound simple enough, but ask a group of sales professionals about the best prospecting approaches and you’re bound to get several conflicting answers.

Read More

66% of respondents agree that people in their organization don’t dedicate enough time or energy to prospecting, according to our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research. Beyond that:

Read More

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: “Put me in front of ten buyers and I'll close seven of them. All I need is more meetings.” I hear this from sellers all the time. They're convinced they'll get the hits if they just get more at-bats. But where are those at-bats going to come from? No salesperson ever hit home runs by sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring or their email to ding. To succeed in sales, you need to proactively generate a consistent stream of new leads to fill the front end of the pipeline.

Read More

TL;DR? Download the PDF and save it for later. Many sellers assume buyers don't want or need to talk to them early in the buying process.  This simply isn't the case. In fact, our prospecting research reveals buyers want to hear from sellers early.  When Do Buyers Want to Hear from Sellers in the Buying Process?

Read More

To succeed in sales, you need a steady stream of new opportunities entering the pipeline, whether it's with new clients or existing accounts. That's not as easy as it used to be, given that people are now working, buying, and selling virtually, and many organic opportunities to create sales opportunities have disappeared.

Read More

There are few areas of selling filled with more uncertainty, challenges, and conflicting advice than prospecting. Success in sales prospecting requires breaking through the noise to capture buyers' attention and influence them to meet with you. Which begs a few questions: What does capture buyers’ attention? Do buyers want to hear from sellers, and if so, when? How should sellers reach out and connect with buyers?

Read More

This piece originally appeared in the August 2018 edition of Independent Agent magazine and is reprinted here with permission. Word of mouth, repeat business and referrals used to be enough to maintain a thriving sales organization. But today, buyers have more options than ever before, they're more educated, and the phone doesn't ring like it used to. That means sellers need to be proactive in growing their pipelines and securing meetings with buyers. Here are five ways to get started:

Read More

Put me in front of 10 buyers and I'll close 7 of them. All I need is more meetings. I hear this from sellers all the time. Get me more "at bats" and I'll get the hits. To succeed in sales, you need a consistent stream of new leads to fill the front end of the pipeline. You can't, however, just sit back and wait for the phone to ring or email to ding. You need to be proactive in filling your own pipeline if you're going to succeed with prospecting.

Read More

We all love repeat business, referrals, and inbound warm leads. The problem is you can’t scale warm leads. When these run out, so does your ability to grow your revenue, unless, of course, you prospect and drive new leads in the pipeline yourself.

Read More

Email prospecting is a hot topic these days—and it should be because it works. Or at least, it works when it's done right. In 5 Sales Prospecting Myths Debunked, we found that email is the #1 way buyers prefer to be contacted by sellers.

Read More

As a seller, one of your most difficult tasks will be breaking into new accounts and setting meetings. Most of us have some form of cold prospecting in our past, so we all know how lonely it can sometimes feel. But if you want to be successful in sales, you need to be able to build your own pipeline and drum up your own business.

Read More

What is the #1 challenge or issue you face when it comes to growing sales for your business? When I recently reached out to my network and asked that same question, 75% mentioned sales prospecting as their #1 challenge. The problem isn’t that people don’t know what to do; it’s that what they’ve always done no longer works. Want proof? Think about the last time you met an actual decision maker at a networking event, and that conversation led to a sale. How about from a cold call? Trade show? Advertisement? The simple truth is this: if you do what everybody else is doing, you’ll get the same results everybody else is getting.

Read More

Cold prospecting – reaching out to targets you don’t know to generate an initial meeting – is one of the hardest parts of sales. Partly, it’s a numbers game. With decision makers more insulated than ever, it’s getting harder and harder to get past gatekeepers and beyond voicemail. But what happens when you do get a cold prospect to pay attention – whether it’s because they picked up the phone, or responded to an email or a direct mail piece? Do you feel like you nail it every time? Much prospecting success is determined in this first interaction. Many opportunities die here before you have a chance to engage.

Read More

It's 2001. You work for a new company in the search engine space. Let's call this company Shmoogle. Shmoogle has this huge new idea—businesses are starting to grow based on getting found on the Internet. Why not have businesses pay per click to get found? Brilliant! You're a sales person at Shmoogle, and you know pay per click will be huge. You start prospecting on the phone.

Read More